CONCERNING THE HOLY BISHOPS OF MAASTRICHT, EUCHERIUS AND FALCO
Around the Year 1000.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Eucherius, Bishop of Maastricht in Belgium (St.) Falco, Bishop of Maastricht in Belgium (St.)
By I. B.
[1] At Maastricht on the Meuse, which is an illustrious city of Belgium, on the sixth day of February, the memory of all Bishops -- as many as held the see at Atuatuca Tungrorum SS. Eucherius and Falco, Bishops of Maastricht and afterward at Maastricht, after the See was transferred there by St. Servatius -- is customarily celebrated with a double office, as we indicated in the catalogue of those passed over at that day. For -- a rare distinction -- all who held the bishopric in both those cities from the times of the disciples of the Apostle Peter to nearly the year 1250, and then at Liege, have been enrolled in the registers of the Saints. Although, furthermore, all are venerated on one day, the solemnity of each is celebrated separately on various days, at Maastricht and elsewhere, or at least their birthday is inscribed in the Martyrologies and Calendars. And indeed, on February 20, we find the memory of two recorded -- St. Eucherius and St. Falco, venerated on February 20 who are believed to have been blood brothers, the former the eighth from St. Servatius and Falco the ninth, or the seventeenth and eighteenth from St. Maternus.
[2] The name of St. Eucherius on this day is displayed in the Calendars of the Church of Maastricht. Ferrarius also in his General Catalogue of Saints writes: the name of Eucherius in the Martyrologies "At Maastricht on the Meuse, of St. Eucherius, Bishop of Tongeren." To what extent they could be called Bishops of Tongeren when their seat was already firmly established in the city of Maastricht has been explained elsewhere: why called Tongeren Bishop namely because the diocese was the same, circumscribed by the same boundaries, although it was no longer the city of Tongeren that was the metropolis of that diocese (which some more recent writers, however, seem to have thought), but Maastricht -- a city which belonged to the Upper Masaci, so called from the river Meuse, which they and all who dwell along it down to the Ocean call Masa, or Maes or Mase in the Teutonic dialect. and Liege Bishop? In the same way should be explained what Saussay writes in his Gallican Martyrology: "At Liege," he says, "the passing of St. Eucherius, Bishop and Confessor, who, having been allotted the See upon the calling to heaven of Blessed Quirillus, the sixteenth Bishop of this seat, and having strenuously imitated his faith and charity, in a brief episcopate produced great advances in sacred affairs, and having gloriously discharged his episcopal sanctity and pastoral virtue, happily fell asleep in the Lord on the tenth day before the Kalends of March." Liege was neither the See of St. Eucherius, nor (as far as any writer reports) did his death occur there, nor are his relics now preserved there, nor does his veneration flourish there. Nevertheless Saussay attributes him to Liege, because the See was transferred there from Maastricht by St. Hubert. The manuscript Florarium of Saints records him on February 26 in these words: "At Upper Maastricht, the deposition of St. Eucherius, the first of that name, Bishop of Tongeren. Who, having governed the Church of Tongeren vigorously for two years, departed to the Lord in the year of salvation 1026." It calls him the first of that name,
because the third after him was St. Eucharius, of whom we shall treat on February 27. For the rest, that St. Eucherius appears to have died around the year 495 has been shown in the Dissertation on the Bishopric and Bishops of Maastricht on the Meuse. died around the year 495
[3] We have found nothing written anywhere about the deeds of St. Eucherius. The encomia that Saussay heaps upon him would fit any holy Bishop. But what Jean Placentius of Sint-Truiden writes about him from what family was he born? is akin to the fables of the ignorant common folk: "Eucherius," he says, "son of the Count of Ostia, by the daughter of the Count of Namur." Who at that time were the Counts of Namur or of Ostia? That he was of Roman origin, his name and his brother's name indicate. What Placentius adds may in part be deemed true, even if his chronology is not approved by us: "A man of proven modesty," he says, "and a wonderful preacher, he ascended the Chair in the year of salvation 1027, presided for eight years, and was buried in the Church of Servatius on the tenth day before the Kalends of March." But what was then the Church of Servatius? The fifth bishop after Eucherius, Monulphus, built, arranged, and adorned the great church in honor of St. Servatius, the body was later transferred to the church of St. Servatius into which the body was transferred with much devotion and veneration, as St. Gregory of Tours writes in his work On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 72. For, as he had said just before, "usually the devotion and zeal of the faithful would construct an oratory of planed wooden boards; but they were promptly either carried away by the wind or collapsed of their own accord." It is believed, however, that afterward the body of St. Eucherius was also translated to that magnificent basilica of St. Servatius.
[4] Falco, his brother as some say, succeeded Eucherius in the Chair, around the year, as we conjecture, 495. He is found to be called Folco and Fulco by some, and Falcodeus -- perhaps because those two former names at least were in common use among the Franks. But at the time when Falco was elevated to the episcopate, St. Falco's name is Roman, perhaps also his family the Franks had not yet been sufficiently trained from their savagery to Christian gentleness and to the cultivation of letters and piety for bishops chosen from among them to be plausible. He was perhaps descended from Romans, or, if sprung from the old Belgians, certainly educated in Roman arts and distinguished by a Roman name. For there was at Rome a family of the Falcones, of the Valerian gens, from which M. Valerius Falco is read in Livy (Decade 3, Book 8) as having been sent with M. Valerius Laevinus, a man of consular rank, and other envoys to Asia to bring the Mother of the Gods from Pessinus; and in Book 10 he is said to have been Curule Aedile; and in the following year, in which Hannibal was defeated by Scipio, to have commanded two legions in Bruttium as Praetor.
[5] St. Falco died on the same day as his brother -- at least he is inscribed on the same day in the Florarium of Saints in these words: "At Maastricht, the deposition of St. Folco, Bishop and Confessor of Tongeren, in the year of salvation 1040." entered in the Calendar on February 20 and 21 On the following day, in a certain manuscript, not very ancient (just as the Florarium itself is not), it reads thus: "At Upper Maastricht, of Blessed Falcodeus, Bishop." Placentius writes that he was buried in the Church of Servatius -- meaning his body was translated there after it was built by St. Monulphus, as we said of St. Eucherius.
[6] As for the deeds of St. Falco, we likewise find nothing, except the letter of St. Remigius to him, in which he sharply reproves him for having usurped jurisdiction in the Church of Mouzon against the rights of the Church of Reims. He had ordained Priests at Mouzon outside his own diocese We said on February 9, in the Life of St. Victor the Martyr, that Mouzon is situated on the River Meuse, in the diocese of Reims, but on the borders of the dioceses of Trier and Liege. There, at the beginning of his episcopate, St. Falco, while visiting the neighboring places of his bishopric (perhaps ignorant that the place did not pertain to him, or thinking that in the great need of the peoples -- such as existed elsewhere in Belgium too, in the turbulent beginnings of Frankish rule -- it was permissible to sow even in another's field, so long as the harvest would redound to the benefit of the common Lord) had ordained Priests and other ministers of the Church. Concerning which matter St. Remigius remonstrates thus: therefore severely reproved by St. Remigius "To the Lord truly holy and most blessed brother in Christ, Bishop Falco, Remigius the Bishop. As far as I have learned, and as your deeds have proven, it was your concern first to inflict injury upon me rather than to convey a greeting. O fitting beginning that you have made -- to wound a Bishop before you saw me as a Bishop! Too quickly have you taken flight with your tender feathers, by levity of mind, not by the counsel of maturity. For at the very beginning of your episcopate you attempt to enter upon another's rights, as one ignorant of the Canons you who still ought to have entered upon your own with reverence. Was it therefore right that you should have believed the Church of Mouzon to be seized by unlawful ordinations by you -- a church that the metropolitans of the city of Reims, under Christ's help, have always governed by their own ordination? You still do not know your own affairs, I reckon, and already you are invading what belongs to others. In which therefore you have made Levites, consecrated Priests, and installed Archdeacons, and a primicerius of the most distinguished school and militia of Lectors -- I do not complain that you did not see fit to consult me in these matters: would that you had seen yourself! For if your Holiness was ignorant of the Canons, it was excessively hasty of you to transgress before you had learned. But if you did know the statutes of the churches, all the more gravely and all the more dangerously has your folly trampled upon the decrees of the ancient and magnificent Pontiffs."
[7] It is not necessary for me to transcribe the entire letter; I shall excerpt a few points. He declares that he has deposed those whom Falco had ordained: "I do not wish it to escape you," he says, "that the Levites and Priests whom you have made contrary to order have now been removed from their order. For I considered that it was not fitting for me to admit those whom it was not lawful for you to ordain." What is more, he seems to wish to impugn the very election of Falco himself: "But what," he says, "shall I say about the orders of those whom it was not lawful for your Blessedness to promote? That matter is more serious; for if we examine things according to the statutes and severity of our forebears, not quite legitimately ordained your episcopate no less than their status will come into question." He then indicates the reason: "For I had wished that you had remained a Cleric, because you had been made a Priest by force." He also accuses him of avarice: avaricious "You command, as I hear, that the tributes of your tenants be brought to you, and you order the revenues of the fields to be delivered. It is given to understand that you coveted the property of the Church, not the Church herself; since as an anxious examiner you demand what I, to whom they lawfully belonged, have rather remitted than sought."
[8] Yet he commends his learning with these words: "Since I, utterly unskilled, cannot feed the sheep of Christ with the abundance of heavenly nourishment, I admonish you, who are instructed in sacred learning, to feed those that have been entrusted to me at Christ's command, yet commended for his learning but I forbid you to invade them." But how could Remigius profess himself utterly unskilled? Did he perhaps write "impeded"? Or was this an expression of his extraordinary humility? But he could also have praised Falco's zeal, for it seems beyond doubt that he acted from desire to enlarge divine honor and to procure the salvation of souls, even though he exceeded the limits of his authority. Finally, he exhorts him to take diligent care of his own Church: and admonished to care for his own people "Act always," he says, "so that worthy things may attend you. Be a servant of the Church over which by divine dispensation you have been deemed worthy to preside, and as a solicitous pastor be vigilant for the salvation of the Lord's flock." That Falco amply carried out what that elder Bishop, who had already worn the mitre for forty years, had so urgently impressed upon him, is evidenced by the fact that he was enrolled in the register of the Saints. How long he presided over the Church of Maastricht is not sufficiently established. We have indicated elsewhere that he appears to have died around the year of the common era 512. died around the year 512
[9] Whether the neighboring town of Maastricht in the Transmeuse territory received its name from him -- which the native and neighboring Teutons call Falcoburgum, is Fauquemont named after him? that is, Castle of Falco, and the French call Fauquemont (which for the Teutons would be Falcoberga) -- there is no evidence by which I can affirm this, nor would I oppose those who conjecture it.